Gyeongju on table
Sweet, savory hand-made pastry
Hwangnam bread
Some shops in Hwanglidan-gil are crowded even on weekdays. They are all here to buy Gyeongju Hwangnam bread, a local specialty bread with red bean paste as filling. Steaming Hwangnam bread is definitely one of the major K-desserts you should try if you ever visit Gyeongju.
📝Text by. Editorial Team / 📷Illustrated by. Gyeol
This famous local specialty pastry is called Hwangnam Bread because it was first sold in Hwangnam-dong, which is better known for Hwanglidan-gil Street today. It is probably the oldest pastry with red bean paste filling in Korea. The ingredients are simple: the thin, transparent skin made of flour and red bean paste for filling. But the pastry creates rich flavors out of simple ingredients. There are different types of sweetness, but they can be divided into two main categories. One is strong, zesty-sweet, and the other is gentle yet richly sweet. People get easily tired of the former sweetness but the latter makes people keep eating just like what Hwangnam Bread does.
The key to the sophisticated sweet flavor is “red beans." So the secret of delicious Hwangnam Bread lies in making good-quality red bean paste. It is simple but not easy at all because it requires long hours of hard work. To make red bean paste, red beans are boiled, and then sugar is added to boil down the beans and sugar mixture for about three hours. It needs constant stirring for three hours in order to bring out the optimal sweetness. When the red bean paste is done, a paper-thin flour skin is filled with the paste and baked in the oven. Finally, the comb pattern is pressed on top of each pastry as a symbol of Silla cultural heritage.
Steaming-hot Hwangnam Bread tastes best when eaten with a cold glass of milk. Once you take a bite off the bread, the sweet, savory flavor melts in your mouth, further enhanced by the cold milk you drink. People call it “the flavor of memories of old days."
